


Some Guys Have All the Luck

by Lynda_Carraher



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alien Culture, Clumsiness, Diplomacy, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kirk Is Frustrated, Loss of inhibitions, Mass Media, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-22 23:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19138690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynda_Carraher/pseuds/Lynda_Carraher
Summary: The job performance of Captain Kirk’s new personal yeoman leaves much to be desired. But she’s trying. Really really … trying.





	Some Guys Have All the Luck

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Star Trek is the property of Paramount/Viacom. This story is the property of and is copyright (c) 1984 by Lynda Carraher. Originally published in ‘Two-Dimensional Thinking’, Lee Heller, editor. Rated G .

“Doc, is there such a thing as an anti-klutz vaccine?”

Leonard McCoy closed his eyes and silently prayed for patience before he turned around.

Yeoman Ann Stolpern was standing in the doorway. Actually, she was leaning against the frame with one foot pressed against the calf of the other leg, wearing a rueful grin and what was left of her uniform.

“Because I thought if there is, maybe you could just inoculate me, or something.”

McCoy sighed. “What did you do now, Annie?” There was resignation in his voice as he crossed the room, but no real malevolence. If Stolpern was as clumsy as an overgrown puppy, she was also as friendly and good-natured as one, and he had found it impossible to stay annoyed at her for long.

“I sorta dropped a crate,” she said, leaning on McCoy’s arm and limping toward the examination table.

“Holding it in your skirt, were you?” He didn’t wait for her to reply. “Here you go. Up on the table.”

“Well, no; not exactly. The corner of the crate sorta caught it on the way down.” She fingered the shredded skirt. “They don’t make these very tough, do they?”

“Mmm. And then the crate landed on your foot?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, let’s take a look.” He tugged gently at the boot, then stopped when she gulped and went pale under her generous sprinkling of freckles. “Pretty tender, is it?”

“Well … um … yessir, it is.”

McCoy reached into a drawer at the table’s base and pulled out a long and wicked-looking piece of equipment. Stolpern’s big blue eyes got even bigger.

“What … uh … what are you gonna do?”

McCoy made a minute adjustment to the controls, his attention on the instrument. “I’m afraid it’ll have to be cut off.”

“My FOOT!?!”

Startled, he looked up to see her clutching the injured appendage. “No, Annie,” he smiled patiently. “The boot.” He lifted the vibrosaw, then halted when he saw the tears welling over. “It won’t hurt,” he promised. “Look.” He pressed the humming blade against his palm. “See? It’s set for inorganic. I couldn’t cut you with it if I tried.”

“It’s … it’s n-not that.” She took the tissue he produced and blew her nose loudly. “It’s just … well, this is m-my third pair of boots this m-month. If I have to draw another p-pair, they’ll take it out of my p-p-paaaaay!” The last word was drawn out in a long wail.

McCoy put down the vibrosaw and handed her another tissue. “Yeoman, what happened to your other boots?”

When the wail had subsided to a weak sniffle, she replied, “I … uh … spilled some acid on ‘em.”

“That’s one pair.” He waited. “Annie?”

“Well, I sorta lost one boot when I was on shore leave.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Well, we got called back to the ship awful fast. When we got orders to come to Florint, remember? I looked and LOOKED, Doc, honest, but—”

“Which one was it?”

“Sir?” She was blushing pinkly.

“Which boot, Annie. Which boot did you lose?”

She looked at him blankly. “The left one. Why?”

“Because the one I have to cut off is the right one. You’ll still have a full pair. Okay?”

She thought it over for a moment, then the light dawned. “Oh. OH! Yeah, I see. Well, great! Cut away, Doc!”

He checked the adjustment on the vibrosaw again and slipped it into the top of the boot. The neonyl parted like wet clay over the carefully-calibrated blade.

“That tickles.”

“Mmm. Hold still, now; I’m almost done.” He shut off the saw, peeled away the ruined boot, and dropped it into a bin, then ran a Feinberg over the rapidly-swelling foot.

“Is it broken?”

“Nope. But you really mangled that little toe. The nail is gonna have to come off, and you’ll have to stay off that foot for a few days.” He pushed a spray-hypo against her calf. “That’ll take effect in a few seconds, and we can get down to business.”

She sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry to be such a nuisance. Seems like I spend more time in here than I do on duty.”

“You have been a pretty regular customer.” He pinched her ankle. “Feel that?”

“No.”

“Good.” He cut away the foot of her tights and began cleaning the injury. “Just for the record, Yeoman, what was in that crate?”

“Soap, sir.”

* * * * *

“Soap? She dropped a crate of _soap_ on her foot?”

“That’s what she said, Jim.”

“I give up.” He pushed his dinner tray away, the contents half-eaten. “I wish Rand was back. I wish I hadn’t drawn Yeoman Klutz to replace her. And I wish to hell there was some other source for diboridium so we wouldn’t have to deal with those crazy Florints.”

“Well, there isn’t, so we do. You want the Romulans or the Klingons to get their hands on it?”

Kirk considered the possibility of facing an enemy ship armored with a diboridium-titanium alloy, and shuddered.

“By the way,” McCoy continued, “you just used up all three wishes. Your fairy godmother is going to be very cross.”

“I don’t _have_ a fairy godmother. If I did, she’d have managed to get me out of this assignment.” He sighed. “When this is over, I’m going on a very long R&R, and anybody – any _thing_ – that tries to meddle with my inhibitions is going to get creamed.” He scowled and poked moodily at his tray with his fork. “Have you come up with any kind of defense for us?”

It was McCoy’s turn to scowl. “Hell, no. I can’t even figure out how they do it. There isn’t even a name for it!”

“Telempathy?” Kirk suggested.

“Not even close. An empath – or a telempath, if they can do it from a distance – picks up your physical or emotional state and experiences it with you, or for you. The Florints don’t do that. They just get their jollies by breaking your normal response patterns or removing your inhibitions. And they seem to get just as big a charge out of watching us act on fleeting impulses as they do from rolling out the really big guns.”

“I know.” Kirk grinned. “How’s Brock?”

“He’s fine. I released him this morning. Y’know, for a little gal, that Uhura packs quite a wallop, doesn’t she?”

“She sure does.” The captain chuckled at the memory of his petite communications office decking the hulking security man. Then he shook his head. “I think she was more embarrassed over hitting him than she was over getting pinched in the first place.” He pushed away from the table. “Well, I think I’m going to call it a night. Tomorrow, I have to explain to the Florints why they can’t seat a representative in the Federation Council. Can you imagine—”

“Captain?”

He turned to see personnel officer Liu Fan-Chei making her way toward them.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I was afraid you’d get away in the morning before I could catch you.”

“It’s all right, Lieutenant. What’s up?”

“It’s about your yeoman, Captain.”

“Rand?” He let a small flicker of hope ignite. Maybe the transfer hadn’t worked out, and…

“No, sir. Stolpern.”

“Oh.” He sat down heavily. “What is it this time?”

“When we made rendezvous with _Republic,_ she received a package listed as personal effects. It puts her way over her space allotment … again.”

“Oh, lord. More tapes?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. Fifteen cubic feet of them. She was already five cubic feet over – and that’s just the _official_ tally.”

“I’ll take care of it.” He turned to McCoy. “Sickbay?”

The doctor nodded. “If you don’t mind, Jim, I think I’ll let you handle this one alone.”

“You’re all heart, Bones.” He stood up and started across the room.

“Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“Watch out for falling crates.”

* * * * *

Ann Stolpern was crying; great huge sobs that wracked her chest and sent torrents of tears down her cheeks. Every few seconds, she blew her nose mightily and dropped the ruined tissue on the bed, where mounds of them billowed like snowdrifts each time she moved.

“Yeoman?” There was a note of true concern in Kirk’s voice as he stood in the doorway. Stolpern was a pain in the kiester, but nobody deserved to suffer like that. “Are you in pain? I’ll call—”

“No,” she sniffed. “It’s just…” She gestured weakly at the viewscreen extending across the bed.

Kirk moved forward until he could see the image, frozen where she had stopped it as he entered. It was the face of a ruggedly handsome young man, distorted by some painful emotion.

“Bad news from home?” he asked, thinking of that huge shipment of tapes.

She nodded.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Oh, Captain, you wouldn’t be interested.”

He gave her his kindly-captain smile. “I’m interested in anything that affects a crew member like this.” He gestured at the havoc on the bed and sat down, handing her another box of tissues.

“Thank you.” She wiped her eyes, blew her nose again, and added to the snowdrift. “It’s just awful, sir. Leilani just told Derek she can’t marry him because Craig’s still alive. How he survived on that asteroid all those months since his ship crashed…” She shook her head, blonde curls dancing. “And of course, Derek has been _so_ depressed ever since Myrna lost the baby. He really wanted that child, even if she did seduce him in the first place just to trap him – you know how strict the New Salemites are over things like that – and what with her Daddy being Derek’s boss…  But now _that’s_ over and Myrna’s set her cap for Trent, I thought Derek and Leilani might … might…” She began sobbing again.

Kirk looked from the handsome young man to the weeping girl. Was there a resemblance there, around the eyes?

“Is this … uh … Derek … part of the family?

“No, not really. But after all these years, it seems like it.”

“Oh. I see.” He didn’t. “Is there something…?” A brilliant thought hit him. “Maybe you’d like to take compassionate leave and go help straighten things out.”

She looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “I don’t think so, sir. I mean, these tapes took ever so long to catch up with me, and I’ve just started watching them. By the time I could get home, I’d just be that much farther behind.”

“Behind? Behind what?” The whole conversation was beginning to take on an Alice-in-Wonderland quality, as conversations with Stolpern frequently tended to do.

“Behind the story lines,” she explained. “Mother sends the tapes whenever she gets a box filled up, and I’d probably pass an outbound shipment on the way in.” Mistaking his puzzled silence for encouragement, she gave him a shy smile. “You know, when I was transferred, things got so mixed up that I got a shipment out of sequence. It was very upsetting. There I was, just _dying_ to see Tanya and Griff’s wedding, and suddenly here were these tapes with them back from their honeymoon and fighting over some green Orion animal-woman he’d taken up with at the resort. Not that I was surprised,” she added self-righteously. “After all, he was carrying on with Daphne – Tanya’s _sister_ , for Pete’s sake – all the time Tanya was in the hospital with the brain tumor.”

Kirk sat open-mouthed as the avalanche of unrequested information surged over him. He mentally clawed his way back to the first boulder that had hit him. “Story lines?” he asked, forming each word very precisely.

“Uh … yes, sir.” Stolpern was beginning to look slightly uncomfortable.

“STORY lines?!? Do you mean to tell me this is all some kind of _play_? That these people are ACTORS?”

“Uh … yes, sir.” Slightly uncomfortable had been replaced by extremely uncomfortable, and Stolpern cringed a little.

Kirk strode around the room, waving his arms and looking as though he was searching for something – or someone – to strangle. “And that whole crate of tapes was—”

“Yes, sir. My soaps.” She frowned a little. “I wonder why they call them that?” she mused.

Kirk stared at her, his face the approximate hue of a phaser beam. “And _that’s_ what you dropped on your foot?”

“Yes, sir. I told Dr. McCoy—”

“You told him you dropped a crate of _soap_ , not—” 

“Excuse me, Captain, but I said ‘Soaps, sir.’ He probably misunderstood me.”

Kirk advanced on the blanket-covered form, bracing his hands on the bed and tumbling a flurry of crumpled tissues to the deck. “I want _you_ to understand _this_ , Yeoman!” he snapped. “Get rid of them. All of them. However many hundreds of cubic feet you’ve managed to smuggle on board this ship, under whatever guise – GET RID OF THEM!”

Stolpern’s chin began to quiver, and Kirk pulled back, feeling uncomfortably like a bully. Then he thought about the time his new yeoman had forgotten to draw his clean uniforms from the laundry and he’d spent two hours running the ship from his quarters, clad only in his skivvies. And the time she’d dumped a pot of coffee on the Argellian ambassador. And the time she’d managed to disable the bridge turbolift between decks just at shift-change. And the time…

He threw up his hands in despair and stalked out of the room. _Oh God_ , he thought. _Even the Florints don’t make me THIS crazy!_

* * * * *

“Honorable Cial-k’tn,” Kirk said, trying to keep his tone reasonable, “we appreciate your desire to become full and active members of the Federation.” The translator rendered his statement into the queeps and chirps of Florenti, and he waited impatiently for it to finish. “But we cannot allow your representative to be seated in the Council, unless that representative agrees to refrain from…” From what? From reducing articulate, intelligent beings to quivering masses of unrestrained impulses? He waved his hands at Uhura and Chekov, who were intently throwing flowers from the centerpiece at each other. If in fact they _were_ flowers, and it _was_ a centerpiece.

“Lieutenant!” he snapped. “Ensign!”

The two jerked to attention, realizing suddenly what they’d been doing, and coloring in varying hues of embarrassment.

Cial-k’tn colored, too; his – its? – teardrop shape rippling from the pale pink Kirk had come to associate with pleasure to the grey-blue of boredom. Behind the alien, sunlight streamed through a window made of fragile, translucent shells. The light blurred the Florint’s edges, making it resemble a fat raindrop even more as it queeped at him.

“No hurt finding to jtpkvr,” the translator attempted, finding no referent for whatever action it was that the Florint was attempting to defend.

“It is very disruptive to our thought processes,” Kirk insisted. “If you cannot control it, your representative cannot be seated. He or she will have to accept the same limitations accepted by those species which cannot exist in an environment compatible to that of the majority of the members, and may participate in Council sessions via telescreen.”

Cial-k’tn extruded two small lumps over its eye organ. “Knowing item,” it said. “Picture box.” A pseudopod flowed from beneath the eye organ and tapped a teardrop-shaped tile on the tabletop. A panel slid back and a triple-faced viewscreen rose from it as smoothly as it had two days ago, when Scott had installed it for the edification of the Florints.

Another tile was depressed and the demonstration tape of a Federation Council meeting washed across the screens. The Rigellian ambassador was expounding at great length on the unfairness of a proposed gross-tonnage tax on raw mineral exports.

“Not accepting,” Cial-k’tn pronounced. “From picture box can only vheestkl. Beings all sleep-make.” The screen faded and the viewer sank silently as Cial-k’tn resorbed both the pseudopod and the bumps of agreement, rippling in some deep brown emotion Kirk couldn’t identify.

“Better jtpkvr. Happy vheestkl makes.” It turned its attention to Chekov, shading to the gold of anticipation or concentration. Kirk wasn’t sure which, but he recognized what the color presaged.

“Ensign, you are at attention,” he warned.

Sweat beaded the young man’s forehead and he swallowed hard. His fingers twitched once, twice. Then, with a maniacal grin, he snatched the translator and hurled it through the delicate window. As shards of shell pattered to the floor, Cial-k’tn shimmered a rosy pink and oozed out of its basket in sheer delight.

* * * * *

“I don’t know how I let you talk me into this,” McCoy grumped, looking over the top of the crate at Stolpern. “I’m a doctor, not a stevedore. And you’ve got no business being up on that foot yet.”

“It’s fine, Doc, honest. I promised I’d tell you if it wasn’t, didn’t I?” In a rare moment of restraint, she refrained from pointing out that the doctor had not been talked into helping at all. What he had said was that she wasn’t setting either foot out of sickbay without his supervision.

“I really do want to get this over with,” she said sadly, patting the crate. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “I feel like I’m drowning kittens.”

McCoy, intent on guiding their bulky burden through the doors of the transporter room, didn’t reply. They positioned it on the pad and released the antigrav handler before he spoke.

“I’m sorry, Annie. I really am. But this…” He gestured at the crate, dropping the antigrav to the deck. “It really was getting out of hand. Any more shipments that size, and you’d have been sleeping in the corridor.”

“That’s what my roommate said,” she sighed, rubbing the crate’s surface again. “I’ll just miss them so, that’s all. A lot of them, I never even got to see.”

“I was wondering about that. Good lord, woman, I could carry the tapes of the whole Encyclopedia Galactica in a medikit. Just how many thousands of hours of tapes do you have in there, anyway?”

She sniffled. “I never took time to figure it out. I just kinda got hooked on ‘em, and then I started making duplicates to trade for the real old ones… If you’re really interested, I could—”

“No!” he said, putting up a hand in defense and moving toward the transporter control. “Never mind. Let’s just set this thing on wide dispersal and—” His comment broke off abruptly as Stolpern let out a howl, and he whirled to see her hit the deck elbows-first as the discarded antigrav spun from under her feet.

“Now you’ve done it!” he snapped, then regretted his temper, seeing the hapless yeoman trying to cradle both her newly-bruised elbows and her bandaged foot, which was turning pale crimson as fresh blood seeped through the wrappings. “I’m sorry, Annie.” He knelt alongside her. “What hurts most?”

_“Everything!”_ she wailed.

He picked her up, grunting a little at the strain. “You’re gonna have to lay off the cream puffs, kiddo. Come on, let’s get you back to sickbay and check out the damage.”

“But my stories—” She gestured at the crate on the transporter pad.

“Forget ‘em. I’ll take care of it later.” He carted her out into the corridor, making a mental note to put a restriction on her diet card. She was definitely going to have to lay off the cream puffs.

* * * * *

“I don’t know.” Kirk eyed the transparent booth dubiously. “Are you sure this thing will work?”

“It should give you ample protection,” Spock said, stepping out of the device and closing the access hatch behind him. “Basically, it is a modification of the radiation shielding,” he explained again. “The single-molecule layers are each polarized at a slightly different angle. Rather than blue-shifting radiation, however, these layers are designed to disrupt electrical impulses. I believe manipulation of the electro-neural impulses in humanoid brains to be the basis of the Florints’ disruptive powers.” He crossed his arms over his chest and studied Kirk closely. “I am concerned, however, that it may work entirely too well.”

Kirk returned the speculative look. “That remark is going to take some explaining, Mr. Spock.”

“I have been studying transcripts of the proceedings,” he said with some hesitation, and Kirk knew the Vulcan was still somewhat miffed at being excluded from personal exchanges with the Florints. Their first meeting with the manipulative aliens had proven him no more immune to their mischief than anyone else. Kirk had intended only to protect his First Office from further embarrassment, but Spock apparently saw the restriction in a different light.

“In particular,” the Vulcan said, “I have attempted to reach a clearer understanding of jtpkvr and vheestkl.”

“How come you can pronounce those when I can’t?”

Spock quirked an eyebrow at him, but did not otherwise respond. “Jtpkvr seems to be the act of removing normal inhibitions, but it is only a means to an end. Their real pleasure seems to be vheestkl, or enjoyment of the consequences of the subject’s actions.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand, Spock.”

“Do you recall that Cial-k’tn indicated telescreen communication was boring? His precise words, as rendered by the translator, were ‘Beings all sleep-make’.”

“Is _that_ what he meant?”

“I believe so.” Spock frowned. “Once we have sent this booth to the planet and tested it, I really must recalibrate the translator.” He dismissed the problem with a slight shake of his head. “The problem, I believe, is not so much that telecommunication prevents jtpkvr, as it is that the natural, non-influenced behavior of the other party is boring. It does not produce a pleasant vheestkl.”

Kirk gave a short, humorless laugh. “You mean if we purposely made jerks of ourselves, the Florints wouldn’t have to do it for us?”

“I do not believe I would phrase it in precisely those terms … but … yes.”

“Mr. Spock, as you have been known to point out, some things transcend even the discipline of the service.” He slid off his desktop perch and patted the booth. “Let’s try this first.” He started for the door, then turned. “Oh – I want you to have that thing crated up before you transport it. I don’t want the Florints trying it out ahead of time.”

“Yes, sir.” He called for a work crew as Kirk left, then turned his attention to the slightly dented translator that sat on the counter with shell fragments still clinging to it here and there.

* * * * *

Lieutenant Eric Brock rubbed his solar plexus absently as he and Ensign Paul Freeman trundled their burden down the corridor.

“Still a little tender?” Freeman grinned.

“Yeah,” Brock sighed. “I may never pinch another fanny as long as I live.”

“You’ll get over it.” Freeman nodded toward the shapely med-tech who approached them from sickbay. “Are you telling me that doesn’t tempt you?” he said from the corner of his mouth as she sidled by.

Both men turned, admiring the view, and Brock sighed again. “Well … I might make an exception now and then…”

“I can introduce you,” Freeman teased.

“Oh, yeah? Let’s get this thing sent off—”

“Aw, come on. Let’s just dump it on the pad and come back later. I happen to know that luscious little number is just going off duty.”

“Well, why didn’t you _say_ so?” Brock turned his back to the carton with alacrity.

Intent on the imminent pursuit of the med-tech, neither man noticed the rear bumper of an autolift cart disappearing around the curve of the corridor ahead of them, beyond the doors to the transporter room.

Anne Stolpern, at the wheel of the cart, made a careful course correction. These things were a snap to run, she decided, even if the crate on the lift’s platform did impede visibility somewhat. At any rate, it was certainly better than trying to finagle somebody else into helping her.

She couldn’t deep-space her collection, orders or no orders. She just couldn’t. It really was like drowning kittens. Maybe she couldn’t save them all … hell, she couldn’t even remember where all of them were … but there must be someplace to temporarily hide this newest batch until the captain cooled off. If all else failed, maybe she could convince McCoy to help her. The doctor was really all right, for an officer, she decided. Kind of like young Dr. Mahoney on ‘As the Cosmos Turns’…

At that very moment, the not-so-young Dr. McCoy was peering out the doors of sickbay, watching two red-clad forms disappear toward the Deck Five rec room. They’d been in the transporter room. That was bad news. If they told the captain Stolpern’s contraband was still on board, there’d be hell to pay.

He took one more cautious look around and hurried down the corridor. Barely glancing at the rectangular crate on the pad, he set the transporter for wide dispersal and activated it, breathing a sigh of relief as it shimmered into nothingness and scattered its dissociated atoms into the void.

_Okay, Bones,_ he told himself _. You’ve done your good deed for the day, and you can go get your dinner with a clear conscience._ He left the transporter room whistling a bawdy ballad he’d last heard in some nameless dive on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet.

The last notes had barely faded from the corridor when the autolift cart, still piloted by Ensign Stolpern, appeared around the opposite curve. In addition to Stolpern and the crate, the vehicle now carried Lieutenant Liu, whose stern expression contrasted sharply with Stolpern’s woebegone one.

“Aw, Fancy, _please_. Can’t I keep just one or two?”

“No, Annie, you can’t. I already told you – if the captain finds out I knew about this and didn’t report you, he’ll have both our hides.” She rubbed the new bruise along her ribcage. “Besides, you’re a menace running around in this thing. You nearly killed me!”

“I’m sorry. I can’t see over—”

“I know. That’s why I’m navigating.” Liu stood up to check their position. “Whoa. Now swing it around toward the doors.”

Stolpern guided the cart to the transporter platform and eased the lift’s forks out from under the crate. It settled onto the pad with a sad little creak.

“Okay,” the lieutenant said, hopping down. “Now for the big sendoff.”

“McCoy said he’d do it,” Stolpern interrupted. “I don’t want him to know I had a relapse. Let’s leave it for him and go get some dinner. I’ve got this mad craving for a cream puff.”

“Hunh-uh. We’ve got to sneak you back into sickbay, and then I’ve got to ditch this cart. You’re crazy, Stolpern, you know that? Absolutely certifiable.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, spinning the autolift on its rear wheels. “But I’m cuddly, so that makes up for it.”

Liu just harrumphed at her and bumped her away from the guidance panel with one hip. “Move over, kid. I’m driving.” She nosed the autolift through the doors, then paused. “Oh, damn, somebody’s coming. Hang on, Annie; it’s getaway time.” She jammed the controls to their maximum setting and skidded out into the corridor, caroming off the opposite wall before zooming away in a cloud of burnt tire treads.

Brock and Freeman came around the curve, still arguing. Freeman stopped and sniffed. “What the hell is _that_?”

“Me,” Brock grumped. “I’m still doing a slow burn. ‘I can introduce you’, he says. Thanks a bunch, pal.”

“How was I supposed to know she had something going with Sulu? At least she didn’t deck you.”

“No,” Brock agreed. “She just told me to run along and play with my phaser.” He stopped at the doorway to the transporter room. “Come on, Paul – I don’t really look like a mugato, do I?”

Freeman looked his companion up and down. “Nah.  …Well, maybe a little bit around the fangs.”

Brock invited him to perform a biological function generally considered to be humanly impossible (although there were always those rumors about the Luridians), and then checked the transporter controls.

“You got those coordinates?”

“Yeah; just a second.” Freeman consulted a PADD and read off the coordinates. They watched the square crate fade out. “Mission accomplished,” he said. “Come on – I’ll buy you a beer.”

* * * * *

Kirk looked around in some confusion as the transporter effect released him. He frowned and freed his communicator.

“Mr. Scott?”

“Aye, sir?” came the filtered response.

“Why are we outside the meeting hall?”

“Ach, sir, the Florints requested the change in coordinates last night. Didna I tell ye?”

“Mr. Scott, if you had told me, I wouldn’t be questioning it, would I?” he snapped.

“No, sir,” came the subdued response. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

Kirk acknowledged the apology grumpily and flipped the communicator closed. He wondered if the Florints’ sphere of influence had managed to extend itself within the last 12 hours. Matters seemed to be going from bad to worse. He was making progress neither with the diboridium mining agreement nor with getting the Florints to agree to restricted participation in the Federation Council. And now his own crew seemed to be falling apart.

He glanced quickly around to assure himself that the entire party had rematerialized with him. They had.

“All right, people. Let’s try it again.”

They moved toward the entry of the meeting hall, then stopped as the circular door irised open and a Florint oozed its way toward them. Kirk activated the translator.

“Honorable Cial-k’tn?” he asked the rosy alien.

“Yes, yes.” The Florint quivered in what appeared to be impatience. “Please to hurrying.”

Kirk started to move again toward the door, only to be blocked by Cial-k’tn.

“What wanting?” came the sharp request.

“Cial-k’tn, we have a negotiation session scheduled this morning.”

“Not necessary. Here am I for agreeing.”

“Agreeing? To the mining contract, or to the Federation membership terms?”

“Yes, yes. All same. Good-bye now.”

Kirk stood dumbfounded as the Florint rippled back toward the entry. As the door irised open, he regained his wits and trotted along in pursuit. “Cial-k’tn! Wait a minute! We need—”

He broke off in confusion as he slipped through the doorway into a pink haze. The room was packed with Florints, all exuding blinding fuchsia happiness. They seemed to be clustered around the conference table. He tried to push his way through the massed aliens, only to be repulsed by what felt like a wall of jelly.

The clicks and queeps of an extremely loud Florinti conversation were being delivered in impassioned tones by the viewscreen’s translator. Whatever they were watching, it was definitely not the Rigellian ambassador, Kirk decided, and thumbed on his portable translator. It dutifully requoted the essence of what it heard, but something seemed to have been lost in the dual translation. The conversation, in male and female voices, made very little sense.

“—explain the manner,” the male demanded.

“Not knowing precision. Finding by independent mineral searchers. Message receiving recently.”

“Coming here he is?” The prospect seemed to disturb the male.

“No. Receiving care he is on Marcus II. Reunion planned.”

“Binding agreement ours for procreative purposes—”

“Cancelled, mate-intended. Impossible is.”

“Planning our same. Not changing. Desire still to agreement for procreative purposes.”

“Similar desiring,” the female’s voice quavered. “Previous mating remaining, Derek.”

_Derek?_ The two syllables made a connection in Kirk’s memory, and he insinuated himself through the jelly-like bodies, trying hard to keep his temper and his balance. He could hear the undertones of the original Terran Standard conversation, and he turned his portable translator off, listening to the dialogue which was now only too comprehensible.

“—running back to him, to toss aside every change for happiness that you or I have ever had? I won’t let you do it, Leilani!”

As the words were spoken, Kirk slithered around the last rank of bodies and saw – as he had known he would – the image which had so recently appeared on a certain sickbay viewscreen.

“STOLPERN!!!!” he howled, and several of the Florints nearest him turned their attention from the two-dimensional anguish on the screen to the first-person-present emotional turmoil in their quivering midst.

“I’ll kill her,” he muttered, clawing for his communicator. “I’ll shoot her out the photon torpedo tubes in her underwear. I’ll replace her sonic shower-head with a Klingon disruptor! Of all the stupid, bone-headed— Scotty?”

“Aye, sir,” the engineer responded.

“Beam up the landing party. _right now_! And get Stol—” His voice faded out mid-word as Scott took his request literally.

* * * * *

“I want to know _how_ your…” He choked back the indelicate adjective he had been about to  use, remembering with difficulty the dignity of command. “…how those tapes got into the hands of the Florints.” He turned his blistering gaze on Brock and Freeman. “And what happened to the isolation booth.”

Everyone in the room wilted under the wrath in the air, like _l’timar_ blossoms retreating from the heat of Vulcan’s midday sun. Embarrassed glances were exchanged, throats cleared, and then McCoy, Liu, Stolpern, Brock, and Freeman, all started talking at once.

“—tripped over the antigrav—”     “—found her trying to smuggle them—”     “—really sorry, Captain—”       “—interrupted by some pressing business—”   “—thought it was the tapes, Jim—”   “—and I guess—”

“You _guess._ You _thought_. You. Screwed. Up,” he said flatly. “Every one of you. Including you, Bones. Get somebody else to take your duty, because nobody is leaving this room until we figure out how to untangle this mess. And get Mr. Spock in here, on the double.”

It was not Spock’s person which responded to the summons, however, but rather his image on the intercom screen. “Captain, I would suggest you report to the bridge before taking any further action in this matter. The Florints have a request which I think you will find most … interesting.”

* * * * *

“They want … viewscreens?” Kirk asked incredulously.

“Yes, Captain. Thousands of them. And a central broadcasting facility, so that the … episodes…” The Vulcan pronounced the word with distaste. “…can be aired on a planetwide basis.”

“I don’t believe it.” Kirk sank into the command chair Spock had vacated for him. “After all the conferences, after that whole diplomatic dog-and-pony show, they want to trade mineral rights for viewscreens and … soaps?” He raised both hands in a futile, demanding gesture to the gods of the cosmos. “Why me?” he beseeched.

McCoy scratched his ear reflectively. “Some guys just have all the luck, I guess.”

“YOU!” Kirk whirled in the chair and emphasized his words with the angry waving of one outstretched finger. “I’ve got half a mind to make you stay on Florint as temporary liaison.” He slumped in the chair, still muttering under his breath.

“If I might offer a suggestion, Captain…” Spock ventured. “Someone _will_ have to remain behind…”

Kirk turned back to McCoy and gave him a slow, predatory smile.

“…but it should not be Dr. McCoy,” Spock finished. He looked as if he regretted that fact deeply.

“Yeah,” Kirk admitted grudgingly. “Somebody from a contact team, I suppose.”

“Under normal circumstances, that would of course be the correct procedure. In this case, however, I doubt that any of the contact team members has the precise degree of expertise needed in this situation. In addition to the hardware, the Florints have requested someone to help them deal with the nuances of the dramas … someone intimately familiar with all the intricacies of the interrelationships and the strands of the plots, someone…”

“Someone … like…” Kirk trailed off, reaching instead for the intercom connection to the briefing room he had so recently left. His voice was honey-sweet.

“Yeoman Stolpern,” he crooned, “report to the bridge, please.”

* * * * *

James Kirk cheerfully hung his freshly-laundered uniforms and shut the closet door with a satisfied smile.

Stolpern had been happily ensconced with the Florints – and her 2,704-tape collection of soaps – for 10 days now, and he had come to the conclusion that he had no use whatsoever for a personal yeoman, anyway.

On reflection, he decided, everything had worked out quite well. Maybe McCoy had been right – some guys _did_ have all the luck.

He wandered into the corridor, thinking seriously about visiting a rec room for a bit of convivial conversation and some liquid refreshment. He rounded a curve and found himself swept up in a chattering, laughing group of crew members. He felt benevolent, even paternalistic, toward them and allowed himself to be carried along by their greetings and enthusiasm.

“Going to get a good seat, are you, sir?” a dimpled redhead asked.

“Seat? For what?”

“The screening. They’ve been running them in Rec 6 for about a week now, and more people are showing up all the time. We’ll have to hurry if—”

He grabbed her elbow and dug in his heels. “ _What_ … are they running in Rec 6 every day, Ensign?” A horrible feeling had begun to creep over him.

“The tapes, sir! Madigan found a whole stash of them back in the archives, and … well … permission to be excused, Captain?”

“These _tapes,_ Ensign – do they have a name?”

“Yessir. A really funny name. Suds, I think she called them. Or maybe it was soaps. I can’t remember.”

The fingers clutching her elbow drifted away aimlessly, and she took that for dismissal, scurrying to catch up with the group.

She threw one last look over her shoulder and then shrugged. Officers were certainly strange. But then, she decided, if the captain wanted to stand there and bang his head against the bulkhead when he could be watching ‘The Edge of Darkness’, it was really none of her business.

# # #


End file.
